


Rears and Vices

by AMarguerite



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen, Persuasion - Jane Austen, The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In seventeen ninety-eight, missing parts were considered quite amusing, even for admirals...." Ralph Lanyon makes the acquaintance of the niece of Admiral Crawford (among others) in 1798. Seven years later, Mary Crawford still manages to surprise him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rears and Vices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilliburlero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/gifts).



> I'm not sure how in the space of three comments Lilliburlero got me to write a fic where Ralph Lanyon and Mary Crawford interact, but you may cast the blame in that direction for the existence of this fic. Any bad translations of people from the 1930s and 1940s to the 1790s and 1800s, factual inaccuracies about the 18th century navy, or muddling of Jane Austen's timelines are, however, entirely my fault.

Mary Crawford was unusually gay and bright for an afternoon call from so humble a figure as a lieutenant on half pay, trying to leverage what little influence he had into a posting. She was coy about the “little service” she had done her uncle, Admiral Crawford, that morning, delightfully catty, and so witty on the subject of Lady Nelson (to whom Ralph had a strong and irrational antipathy), Ralph grew suspicious.

“Out with it, my dear,” said Ralph. “I'm not going to that dreadful bacchanal of Lady Caro’s, if you're fishing for an escort.”

“I only like to know about them, lieutenant, not attend them.” Which was of a piece with Mary, really. She thrived on tales of the wrongdoings of others. “Nor,” she continued on, before Ralph could do more than open his mouth, “do I require a spy. I require a thoroughly innocent and socially acceptable invitation.”

“To what?”

Mary deflected this. "The captain who gave you your step- what was his name?"

"Wentworth?" He raised his eyebrows. "Not your type, my dear. Not nearly dull enough. He won't censor your behavior for the rest of your life."

Mary deployed, with deadly marksmanship, one of the sailor's oaths she usually liked to hint she knew rather than show she knew.

"Ah, so it does concern your parson!"

"Not the parson," said Mary, her hands fisted in the red and purple Kashmir shawl draped over her arms and flowing in formerly graceful folds over her lap. "The parson's wife." The look she gave him, of defiance and pain mixed, was the same one Ralph had given her not too long ago, when he very drunkenly poured out his jumbled recollections of Spud Odell on the deck of the just captured  _ Aurige, _ the bone sticking out of Spu'd leg and Spud, smiling faintly and saying, with the sort of inappropriate gaiety that sometimes struck dying men, “Not now dearie-- some other time.”

"My dear," said Ralph, feeling as if his ship had run into an uncharted shoal. "I didn't think you could surprise me anymore. I thought you a plus, not a minus like myself."

"I live to defy the expectations of others," said Mary. "It will soothe your injured self-conceit to know I hadn't-- it hadn't occurred to me until this morning, when I saw Fanny again, when I was returning here from Hill Street. She is visiting her brother, a Lieutenant Price. He sails with Admiral Croft, on his flag ship-- the ship is being refitted-- here, you know, and the Admiral must to the Admiralty--”

Ralph had never seen Mary so unsettled before.  

Mary took a moment to collect herself before saying, “I missed Fanny more, of course, but I thought this because I parted brass rags with Mr. Bertram. But then I saw Fanny again-- Mrs. Bertram, I suppose I must call her-- and..." Mary let out a bitter laugh. "I never realized, until I met her outside of Mansfield, that all I had loved in her husband was what I first loved in her. He is her older cousin, you see. He shaped her mind and spirit; he told her what books to read and what to think of them; he established her customs of exercise. There is a great difference of feeling and temperament between them, however. Even Mr. Bertram could not perfectly mould a wife. Sparks of the individual will not be wholly extinguished. Fanny is not- she is everything her husband is not."

Ralph did not know how to respond to this wholly unexpected confession except to become brisk. "Come now, Mary, it is useless. She is married."

"You know as well as I do that _that_  hardly means anything."

Ralph moved from his chair to sit by her on the settee, remembering at the last moment to sit on her right instead of her left. Mary was of naval stock, and quite used to officers with missing limbs, but Ralph had not yet accustomed himself to the sight of the padded glove, and the visible outline of two and a half fingers instead of five. He placed his whole, right hand on one of her fisted hands. “It’s hell, isn’t it, Mary? There was a second of mine--”

Mary listened more patiently to this story than she usually did, but, then again, it affected her more.

“--and stood up with him at their wedding. I knew his wife almost as well as I knew him, at that point.”

“What did you do?”

“Not much, after that,” said Ralph, striving for lightness. “He died at the Battle of Copenhagen.”

“I thought Trafalgar?” said Mary, frowning a little.

“No,” said Ralph, the word sticking in his throat. “That was-- that was Spud.”

“Spud,” said Mary. Then, sensing that the incredulous way in which she had pronounced ‘Spud’ had caused Ralph to tighten his lips, she added quickly, kindly: “I dimly recall-- an O something. A middie on the  _ Stuart  _ with you and Hazell.”

“Yes-- Acting Lieutenant Lawrence Odell. Without the apostrophe, though that hardly kept him from being re-christened ‘Spud’ as soon as he stepped foot on the  _ Stuart _ . You’d hardly know he was Irish; his father died when he was ten. Got mixed up in all the unpleasantness in ‘98 out of some kind of suicidally idealistic homage to the land of his forebears. I pulled him out of that one and into the Battle of the Nile. Then... you know the rest.”

Mary had been present for it. The Admiral-- then the Captain-- and Mrs. Crawford had been quarreling at the time and, in one of those bitchy little revenges at which the Admiral excelled, he had taken Mrs. Crawford and Mary with him to the Med. Ralph should have known from that to expect Captain Crawford to prefer discipline outside the law, that did not result in scandal or social disgrace. After Hazell, shaken from his experiences at the Nile, had turned Roman Catholic and confessed every last one of his sins to the chaplain aboard ship, Captain Crawford had refused to pursue a court martial, and merely turned Ralph before the mast for unspecified sexual indiscretions. Ralph had been expecting to hang; he was extremely shocked when, in private, Captain Crawford offered a sly pun about how anyone with any dealings with admirals were familiar with rears and vices and then, turning slightly censorious, told Ralph not to ruin a promising career by abusing his subordinates, or, if he must abuse them, to do a better job of hiding it.   

As Hazell had been immediately transferred off the ship, along with Spud, and some other middies onto a first rate frigate, and Mary and Mrs. Crawford avoided Ralph until he had been reinstated as a midshipman, it was generally believed that Ralph had been trifling with the Admiral’s niece, and been disciplined for it. Ralph knew himself to be far luckier in that situation than he deserved, particularly since Mary had then felt it beneath her to air the true history of Lanyon and Hazell, and hadn’t yet known that outright denying rumors only leant them more credence. Nowadays she would have known how to crush a rumor of that kind before it began-- but, as it did her no injury with the _ton_  to have it known one of her uncle’s midshipmen was so enamored with her he was turned before the mast for daring to raise his eyes to her, she was, on the whole, rather pleased that the rumor still persisted.  

“No reputations were any more than lightly tarnished,” said Mary, patting his whole hand. “No more than my fetching papers from my uncle's house, when I refuse to live there. I do recall a Midshipman Odell. Good at settling quarrels without becoming involved in them, vaguely nice-looking, apt to become Irish when in a perverse mood. I vividly recall some quarrel over handwriting getting very Celtic.”

“His ‘s’es always looked like slashes,” said Ralph. “The schoolmaster was always after him about it.”

“Acting Lieutenant Odell-- Battle of the Nile to the Battle of Trafalgar. That is quite a career for anyone. I wonder....” Her brow, lightly creased in thought, was soon smoothed over. “You really did love him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Ralph, after a minute. “But it’s... well. It’s a nice idea, but it could hardly have been... I built it up too much in my own head. Have a care, my dear. It doesn’t exist. All that Platonian guff about halves of souls becoming one, or loving the divine through another is just Plato's usual brooding on things that are not, but should be.”

“And yet the longing for Fanny pains me someplace outside of the physical,” said Mary, attempting flippancy but sounding rather sad. “We have wandered far from my initial request. Is Captain Wentworth’s sister Sophie Croft?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You and I will be attending the dinner party she is having tomorrow.” In a strained voice, Mary said, “Fanny-- her brother is Lieutenant Price, and he quite artlessly explained that they had a previous engagement with Admiral and Mrs. Croft, when Fanny refused my invitation to have them to dinner here. They both stay with Sir Thomas, at his town house. I am quite obviously unwelcome there. But for the niece of an Admiral to befriend the wife of an Admiral....”

“Mrs. Bertram may not be best pleased to see you again, Mary.”

“She will be,” said Mary, with grim determination. “I will make her so. I will charm her out of her reservations and resentments. I will not be satisfied until she forgets her husband, her station, and herself-- until she forgets all but her love for me. Where does Captain Wentworth walk with his sister-- St. James’s Park, or Hyde?”

“Staging an ambush, my dear?” asked Ralph, raising an eyebrow. 

“Firing the great guns,” said Mary, deliberately reaching for his injured hand. “Come along now, Lieutenant Lanyon. We are such old friends. There is such a long record of kindnesses exchanged as it is-- pray let us add this to the list.” Then, coaxingly: “I shall make it up to you.”

“I doubt that you can, my dear, but I shall do it.”

Mary smiled like a sphinx. “Oh, never underestimate me, Lieutenant Lanyon! Men who do find themselves unpleasantly surprised.” 

 

***

 

As expected, Mary carried all before her. Captain Wentworth was glad to see Ralph, and Ralph was unexpectedly glad to see him. Wentworth was an uncomplicated fellow, of firm character and quick action, and he and Ralph got on much better at nearly equal rank than they had as captain and second, and then first lieutenant. Wentworth’s sister was of much the same mold, straightforward and goodnatured, and very well pleased to have the acquaintance of another woman who had lived in ships and automatically woke at the dogswatch. 

The four of them had a good naval gossip together, and had entered into that stage of naval friendship that was always cemented by swapping stories of Lord Nelson when Mrs. Croft exclaimed, “Why do you not come have tea with us? Harville and his wife are staying with us, at present, as Captain Harville waits for his ship to be outfitted. I am sure you will like to see him again, Lieutenant Lanyon. You are most welcome, both of you.”

Ralph was glad to see Harville again, and to compare their runs of luck and their injuries was a particular pleasure. Mrs. Harville had been a nurse before she married, and bore with grace the somewhat gristly discussion of surgeon’s saws and sutures. It was left to Captain Wentworth to remind them not to haul off gloves and trousers to compare scars as there were ladies present.

“Ladies such as ourselves are quite inured to the sight of scars,” said Mrs. Croft. “Upon my word, Frederick, you are always talking of ladies as if we are irrational, easily overset creatures. Some of us, at least, have experience of the world, and won’t swoon away when reminded that wars are dangerous things. If I can withstand a full broadside, I can certainly withstand the sight of Lieutenant Lanyon’s hand.”

“Captain Wentworth, I am not so very fastidious,” replied Mary, approaching her most irrationally charming. She was thirty seconds away from denying some basic fact, like what time it was, or whether or not it was raining. “Mrs. Croft and Mrs. Harville have set the tone, and I shall match it. With such examples of courage before me, how could I fail to be inspired? Ladies, you know, tend to take their cues from the other ladies present.”  

“That,” said Captain Wentworth, his expression darkening somewhat, “is very true.” 

Harville smoothly steered the conversation barque from these dangerous shoals by saying, “Oh Frederick-- Captain Wentworth-- he is only being cautious. Lieutenant Price’s sister was in a quake yesterday, when we were all swapping stories about Trafalgar. Mrs. Bertram,” he clarified, when his wife looked puzzled.

“Oh yes, poor Mrs. Bertram,” said Mrs. Harville, kindly. "I think she is of a particularly sickly disposition."

“And we three are in excellent health,” said Mary, pertly, “so you need not fear spooking us into a decline. I think I know a Mrs. Bertram-- husband a clergyman?”

“Yes, father a lieutenant of marines,” agreed Mrs. Croft. “Based out of Portsmouth and Northamptonshire, I believe.”

“Oh, that  _ is  _ Fanny Bertram,” said Mary, deliberately gay and careless. “I knew her when I was staying with my sister in Northamptonshire. Poor creature, she was almost always unwell. I can only imagine marriage made her condition... yet more delicate.”

“I do not think  _ that  _ the case,” said Mrs. Harville. “At least, not as I think you meant, Ms. Crawford. Mrs. Bertram did not mention any children. She was merely brought up out of the world, to be very retiring, and seems to have been an invalid most of her life. I do not think she is accustomed to naval talk.”

“Poor dear, we really should inoculate her,” said Mary, with as carved and saintly an air as a marble madonna. “I have always believed in the positive influence of women on each other.” 

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Croft, thoughtfully. “I do not think Mrs. Bertram understands that there is a certain amount of bluster spoken, that can be easily disregarded.” And so the ladies began to plot, leaving Ralph, Harville, and Wentworth, to admire how the surgeon’s mate had saved Ralph’s left forefinger and thumb. There had been some question of amputating the hand entirely, but the surgeon’s mate was an experimental sort of man, and, happily for Ralph, had saved two and half of the fingers, and a good margin of the palm. Harville admired the handiwork greatly, as his own leg was not so well set, or as neatly sewn up. 

“You must come for dinner tomorrow,” said Mrs. Croft, when Mary and Ralph began to take their leave. “It will be a small, informal party, nothing large, but helpful, I hope. I may introduce you to the Admiral, if nothing else.”

Ralph was always keen to cultivate more admirals, and agreed at once. Later, with a little prompting from Mary, whom he was escorting home, Ralph also agreed to keep the gentlemen at their port for an hour, if he could manage it. “Though I cannot think you can accomplish your objective in an hour.”

“I don’t intend to,” replied Mary, with a satisfied little smile, chin tilted up. “I intend to lay the groundwork, merely. It takes Fanny a great deal of time to change her mind about anything. She and her husband think only my  _ mind  _ corrupt. Well, I shall show them what women who are not locked away in the country  _ think _ . She will realize she was harsh on me, I will make a private show of repentance, and  _ you  _ will show her I do not envy her Mr. Bertram.”

Ralph gave her his straight look.

Mary laughed. “Come along now, Lieutenant Lanyon! We have hid behind the old fiction often enough. Someday, when it becomes too dangerous for either of us to be unmarried, we may have to protect each other. You will be glad of my twenty thousand pounds and influence, and I will be very glad to have you in the East Indies when you are not in London. We shall both have sworn friends for whom we shall try to have pure affection, but as we are both have tainted minds, we shall inevitably fail in that attempt and end up with passionate friendships a little too passionate for society's comfort.” Then, tucking her hand more firmly in the crook of his arm, “Besides, I have promised to make it up to you and I have the most marvelous surprise.”

“I do not care for surprises,” replied Ralph.

“You will for this one,” said Mary, tartly, “and you shan’t get it unless you are a bit more helpful.”

The quarrel that then followed was, as Ralph later noted in his journal, ‘catty, even for us.’ But still, he was deliberately attentive to Mary at dinner the next day, and made a point of making himself agreeable to the company. Mary and Ralph had both learned their famous manner from Admiral Crawford, and deployed it with deadly accuracy. Mary sparkled, Ralph charmed; they jointly held the attention of the entire room. Ralph was used to Mary’s hard glitter, but tonight she was particularly, calculatedly brilliant. It was quite easy, really, to seem more taken with Mary than he was. He was impressed with her, and that was always seen as admiration of a more venal or emotional sort when expressed towards a woman.

Ralph knew that there were generally speculations about him in the ward room-- there were few people more interested in scandal than naval officers, unless they were society ladies-- but unless a fellow invert had been assigned to the same ship, he fancied that all speculations were at an end when Mary Crawford came once again into his orbit. If any ordinary man picked up on any of the tells or weakness that Ralph had ruthlessly taken stock of, and with untender determination trained to his will as one bends a tree, and then met Mary Crawford when she was being either charming or bitchy, his suspicions generally took a little turn towards the socially acceptable. 

Ralph was never entirely sure why- whether it was because it was assumed Ralph and Mary had, in the manner of couples, pulled the other’s personality towards their own, or because it was thought Ralph had trained himself not to hide weakness but to keep up with Mary, or because Ralph's air and manners matched those of the circles which Mary represented, or some other reason entirely. Alec, in one of the quarrels they were forever having when Ralph was too long ashore, had once accused Ralph of hiding behind Mary’s skirts. Ralph countered that at least he wasn't in a skirt at a Molly House like Sandy’s set, and the argument had only degenerated from there. Ralph found himself smiling dutifully down the table at Mary while thinking to himself, ‘Ha! If only Alec knew the true lay of the land.’ It would be very gratifying to see Alec’s expression when he realized that Mary relied on him for protection as much as he did her. 

“Remember what I asked,” Mary made sure to murmur in his ear, as the ladies left the gentlemen to their port.

Ralph nodded, and immediately offered a toast to Nelson. This of course, led to a rousing discussion of Nelson, and, after everyone was on their third glass, they were all hiccuping along to Ralph’s rendition of his favorite story, That Time Nelson Asked Me to Pass the Salt. He consulted his pocket watch in the midst of the general melee. Blast, a quarter of an hour short. 

Fortunately, Captain Harville and Lieutenant Price got entangled in a discussion of Portsmouth, and Captain Wentworth found a topic that kept them occupied for quite half-an-hour more. “The lady you are once again escorting,” said Wentworth. “Playing the cicero, or whatever the  _ beau monde  _ calls it-- how do you know her?”

“Miss Crawford and I are very old friends,” said Ralph, who, after Alec, tended not to outright lie about the state of affairs between himself and Mary. “I was a midshipman on the first ship she ever lived in, the  _ HMS Stuart _ .”

Captain Wentworth had a tendency to become rather more inclined to leave off politeness when in his cups and asked, bluntly, “Ah, so is she the captain’s niece for whom you were turned before the mast?”

“Come, come, Wentworth,” said Ralph, feeling a prickle of sweat along his hairline. Admiral Crawford had hushed it up, but it was never a good idea to assume a scandal had died away entirely. “You cannot really think I would talk--”  

“Ah! No. Never one for ungentlemanly conduct with the ladies, were you Lanyon? Why don’t you fix it up? Ms. Crawford is very charming--”

‘When she choses to be,’ thought Ralph, amused.

“--and knows the rigours of the life. Hers is a decided character, unlikely to be persuaded. Fix it up, man. It is a good thing for a man to be married.”

“Without a ship?” asked Ralph dryly. 

Wentworth tossed back his port like a shot of rum. “Ah! So it’s not being made post, is it?”

“Amongst other things,” said Ralph, in a little private joke to himself. 

“Pah! Money, eh? God, do I know what it is to want a little money when one’s hopes rest upon having it. I suppose her people dislike the match. I imagine your connections are not sufficiently grand for Admiral Crawford.” And Wentworth went then on what, for someone as laconic as him, was more-or-less a tirade, on the damned, devilish interference of a woman’s relations, on the mercenary nature of marriage these days, and-- forgetting he was speaking of Ralph’s supposed passion for the decided Mary Crawford-- how weak was woman’s character, to be so persuaded by the opinions of other women. Ralph was not entirely sure what to make of it. When they had first known each other, Harville, then a first lieutenant, had hinted that it was wise to avoid the subject of engagements or sweethearts in the ward room, as the captain had recently been disappointed, and had the kind of temperament that held onto resentments for years, but likewise remained loyal ‘til death. An unhappy combination, all told.  

“I still do not know why you young fellows take so long about the business,” objected Admiral Croft, bored of Portsmouth. “Crawford had  _ Stuart  _ in ‘98. That is seven years in which to fix your interest. I cannot understand why you were so slow about it.”

“Lack of a post, sir,” said Wentworth, before Ralph could respond. “Lanyon here only got his step in ‘05. It’s the damndest luck. I wish you had still been in the Med with me instead of being sent to Trafalgar, Lanyon. I had a keen run of luck. You would have been made post for some of the prizes we brought in.”

“Ah, yes, not every captain will let his officers bring their wives aboard.” Admiral Croft nodded. “I am on other business tomorrow instead of going to the levee, but we shall see next week, eh? Admiral Crawford’s a society sort, he might countenance a master and commander.”

Captain Harville, being newly married himself, was eager to see everyone else in the same state, and eagerly joined his voice to Wentworth’s, in wishing luck and giving advice. Price, following the example of the more senior officers, merely echoed all they said and listened eagerly. 

Ralph endured this siege of good wishes with an increasingly bleak sense of courage. He had always known, just as Mary had always known, that being married was a necessary condition for life, without ever thinkingly highly of marriage. However much contentment he derived from passionate friendships (and rather more illicit relations) with his own sex, there were, after all, things that a male companion could not do: the politicking necessary to move up the ranks, for example, or the running of a household. Intellectually, he knew his fondness for his own sex was a vice, but when he thought of the two years when he had tried women and succeeded only in a sort of interested tolerance for Mary, he could only compare it to trying to like snuff, but only managing to smoke a pipe when social pressure demanded he like tobacco. (With Alec Ralph had made a series of increasingly bitter jokes about how ‘Molly’ derived from ‘Mary’ after all. It was not so much exchanging a vice for a virtue, or even one vice for another, but slapping a socially acceptable cover over a book he could not change.) 

He shook himself out of these reflections-- this was hardly the place to indulge in them-- and drained his glass when Admiral Croft suggested they join the ladies. The gentlemen were all well pleased. Wentworth was allowed to be active, and to brood over his own disappointment; Croft was allowed to genially condemn and assist the younger generation; Price had been delighted to be part of so serious a discussion; and blessed, uncomplicated Harville was happy to think of anyone becoming as happy as he himself was. 

The ladies seemed equally content with their talk; the sharpness of Mary’s manner had been smoothed. She was all smiles, and played softer airs on Mrs. Croft’s harp than was her wont. 

“Have I carried our my orders to your satisfaction?” Ralph asked later, when the musical portion of the evening had drawn to a close and he and Mary had been left pointedly alone by the harp. 

“A qualified success,” said Mary. “Lieutenant Price must to the levee tomorrow, at the Admiralty. I promised to go and introduce him, and to bear Mrs. Bertram company. She did not shake me off. I was too pleasantly altruistic.” 

“And you had reinforcements,” added Ralph, dryly. 

“Indeed I did. And they were good enough to let me have a nice, low talk with Fanny. I....” Ralph realized, with dawning horror, that Mary was on the verge of tears. He fumbled for a handkerchief, but went about it with his left hand. 

“No,” Mary said, clearing her throat, and shaking her head a little. “No. I am perfectly calm. And I was perfectly honest with her. And she understood me-- not-- I do not mean to say that she entirely believed my promises of reform, though I really did believe them when I was saying them, and I think she is convinced I have no interest in certain persons, but she... when I talked of pure and disinterested friendships between women, how sorry I was to have ruined ours, how much I regretted having been the sort of person to value men over the goodness of female friendship-- there was a sort of... understanding. She felt what I could not say. I could see it in her expression. And....”

“It’s the sort of vice that can ruin one’s peace,” said Ralph, quietly.

“Yes,” said Mary. “I wonder if the kinder thing would be to just... but I am selfish. If I must suffer, so should she. Is that terrible? She is such a sweet, unearthly creature. I wonder if she longs for  _ any  _ arms around her, of any sex.”

Ralph did not know what to say to this. He wished, more often than not, that he had not kissed Spud before Spud was transferred to another ship, and he, Ralph, was turned before the mast. 

“Well,” said Mary, with an unhappy smile, “you have fulfilled your orders, lieutenant. I shall reward you, as promised. My brother-in-law is chancing two, great institutional dinners this week, and, as he has robbed me of my sister’s company yet again, has given me leave to gather a small party of only my friends for dinner and perhaps a little dancing tomorrow. Janet Fraser and that cousin she keeps house for, now that her husband is dead--”

“Sandy Reid?” asked Ralph, raising an eyebrow. “Hardly the sort of person you should invite to the canon of Westminster’s.”

“I need him if I’m to get you Dr. Deacon,” said Mary. “The Alexanders are a matched set, and cannot be separated to different houses. And I  _ like  _ Dr. Reid. He makes me feel less catty in comparison. Then Lieutenant Peter Smyth, and Theodore Behn, and Janet has two friends who live together in shared solitude, with all sorts of vague artistic ambitions-- I really think we shall both be sufficiently charmed by their idealism to be annoyed with them only after they have gone-- and your surprise. So we shall have an even number of couples. Not as many ladies,” she added, pensively, “but I only know Janet to share my... particular vice. And she knows only the two friends. We haven’t clubs, you know, to meet each other. At least Janet is fairly obvious about her preferences.”

“Yes, she has more of the gentleman about her than her cousin,” said Ralph. “But here I thought you pining for a glance from Mrs. Bertram’s light gray eye.”

Mary’s smile was twisted, the way a badly healed scar pulled tight and strange the skin around it. “Lieutenant Lanyon! You should know far better than I we cannot live on hopes alone. Sometimes we must compromise. Janet was so  _ very  _ friendly when I hinted to her this morning that I bear affection only for my own sex.”

“The dark horse pulls forward,” muttered Ralph, but before he was pulled into an explanation of  _ The Phaedrus _ , he said, louder, “Janet Fraser is, I suppose, better than no companion at all. If you insist, my dear. I know better than to deny you anything. You make it very unpleasant when I do.”

“I promise you, this will be pleasant,” replied Mary. “Unless, dear sir, you have underestimated me.”

As it turned out, he had. Very soon after he had arrived-- late, with the rest of the party already assembled-- Mary and Sandy exchanged rather smug and conspiratorial looks. Alec took on a slightly apprehensive air and turned hurriedly to be introduced to Janet Fraser’s two artistic friends. 

“Come over here and see the surprise Ms. Crawford has arranged for you,” said Sandy, eagerly pulling him forward and into the sitting room. Ralph had some notion of Mary’s having discovered a member of the Board of Admiralty was an ex-lover of Sandy’s, or possibly Theo’s, or (as was most likely) Peter’s, and swept the room as if before a doubtful stretch of sea. But then--

Ralph felt the blood drain from his face. He had assumed Mary meant she'd find him a ship. Not Spud.

It could not be Spud, Ralph thought, though his eyes took in the reddish hair, the walking stick, the civilian’s clothes, the smile, the air of not wishing to make a fuss-- it could not be Spud. Spud was dead, surely. Ralph had never known if the ship’s doctor had gotten to Spud in time-- had gotten to him before the severely damaged  _ Aurige  _ had sunk in the storm after Trafalgar. Ralph barely had managed to stay afloat himself, and only his left hand had been injured. (He had intended to go down with his ship, but the crew had proved disobliging and hauled him onboard their rescue boat.)

“Hello,” said Spud. “They told me you might be coming.”

This was not possible, thought Ralph. They hadn’t found him. No one had had news of him. Spud was lost at sea. Ralph had seen the ‘D.D.’ of ‘Discharged Dead’ next to ‘Odell, L.P.’ in the muster book of Spud’s last ship.

“Do you remember me? Spud Odell? We were midshipmen together under Captain Crawford, on the  _ HMS Stuart _ ?”

As if he could ever forget. Ralph fell back on the tones he usually did when surprised, and said, as if charging a sub with a disciplinary offense, “I thought you were dead.” He could not help the involuntary glance down. 

“Only temporarily,” said Odell and then, with his cheeky, street urchin habit of ignoring propriety if he thought it funny, shifted his cane from one hand to the other, and knocked on the calf of his left leg. It made a hollow sound; it was wood from the knee down. “My souvenir from Trafalgar. I was just told at the Admiralty this morning-- by our hostess, in fact-- that I owe you for a rescue, after the  _ Achille  _ exploded.”

“You knew that,” Ralph got out. He had been given command of the captured third-rate  _ Aurige _ , the ship nearest the  _ Achille,  _ and sent out one of the boats to find any survivors.

“No,” said Odell, apologetically. “Everything’s rather a blur after I hit the water. I was dead to the world most of the time-- I only dimly recall being pulled out of the briney twice. For weeks I just thought I’d been floating on some spars of the  _ Achille _ until a rescue crew fetched me after the gale. I’ve only just got out of hospital, and into the clerk’s offices.”

It was Odell. Ralph’s joy in the realization could not fully escape from behind his confusion and lingering disbelief. Ralph was not a man accustomed to getting anything he wanted in life. He managed a hard gay smile, unsure if he could control it once it was deployed. “Well, for someone alleged to be unconscious, I must say you did pretty well. Sending me up sky-high in front of a petty officer and a couple of able seamen. You’ll be telling me me you can’t remember that now, I suppose?”

Odell’s mouth opened. “Oh my  _ God _ ,” he choked out, sounding extremely Irish. “That was  _ you _ ? But... God, this is... I found some laudanum floating by after the  _ Achille  _ exploded and had that, thinking if I was going to drown, I’d rather not be aware of it.”

The terrible fear that he had not dared allow rise to consciousness, that Odell did share his particular vices but merely did not like him, was so suddenly and powerfully laid to rest, that Ralph was momentarily deprived of speech. 

“I was off my head. Of course I didn’t know you. Christ, you don’t suppose if I had--”

“Same old Spud,” Ralph managed, with a sort of false brightness. “I wouldn’t have believed it.” He still didn’t. He took a step back. He felt dazed. This wasn’t real, this couldn’t exist-- but Odell was as pale now, as he had been when Ralph had kissed him in the officer’s ward room, as pale as when his shin bone was sticking out of his leg-- he looked so exactly as Ralph always remembered him, Ralph found himself saying, “Good God, you haven’t changed a bit.”

“It was the laudanum,” said Odell, earnest and so sweetly honest. “That was all. I’d have known you anywhere, but for that.”

“Ah well,” said Ralph, smiling again, hope battering at his rib cage, the way the starling beat itself on the bars of its cage in Sterne, “we’ve both got a shock or two coming, I daresay.”

It was only then that he recalled Mary had invited a number of other people-- and that, in fact, Mary was still standing at the door of the sitting room, looking purposefully innocent and demure, with a smirking Janet beside her. Alec was hovering tactfully on the fringe of the conversation. Sandy, less tactful, was drinking in their reunion open mouthed. Peter and Theo had given up the pretense of conversation on the couch, and were now merely pretending not to listen. Janet’s two friends were the only ones who did not seem to be attending. They had no interest in men whatever, even ones sympathetic to their own vices. 

“Shall we go into dinner, now that we are all assembled?” asked Mary, artlessly. Perhaps guessing that Ralph would be overset, she had seated him on her left, and laughingly asked Janet to take the seat at the head of the table. The footmen seemed to think this Ms. Crawford’s means of adhering to propriety. Ms. Crawford would bend the rules to have her own friends over to dinner, but she would not usurp the authority of Dr. Grant. To have a woman carving was the sort of polite joke that suited Ms. Crawford’s sense of humor. 

Odell was seated at the other end of the table, where Alec seemed to be politely grilling him. Ralph found it difficult to look away, until Mary sighed and said, “Come, come, Theo’s been nabbed by one of the artists. She’s explaining an epic poem. I dare not rescue him for fear of being drowned in verse myself.  _ You  _ must give me some conversation.”    

“Why,” Ralph began, and then settled for, “How?”

“How, my dear?” asked Mary, as amused as if she had seen the reunion on stage. “Your Acting Lieutenant Odell is now plain Mr. Odell, who goes to his desk at ten every day, and dutifully writes out in a clear, but very distinctive hand, all of the letters to admirals, captains, and--” with a swift piercing gaze “--lieutenants and the like. You would have known as soon as you got your papers next month to be master and commander of a sloop on blockade duty.”

“Might one inquire as to how--”

“How I knew, or how long I knew it?”

Ralph gave her his straight look. “Both.”

“As to the first-- my uncle forgot some papers of his in London and asked me to send them along, two days past. I had to read through everything in his  _ secretaire _ , of course, to make sure the papers I pulled out were the right ones. He recommended you for a sloop currently being refitted.” She clearly took pleasure in Ralph’s look of irritation. There were times when one really felt sympathy for Henry Crawford, having Mary as a younger sister. “As to your dear Spuddy-- I recognized the ‘s’es on some of my uncle’s letters and orders. I went through the rest of the papers trying to remember why I recognized them. Then, voila! Two weeks ago, the chief clerk heard some rumors one Laurence “Spud” Odell had gone over to Ireland in ‘98 and was hesitant to accept him as a clerk, even with his distinguished naval record. My uncle assured him that Odell had been a midshipman of his during the Battle of the Nile. If Acting Lieutenant Odell was in Egypt, he clearly could not be rebelling in Ireland. I only saw it two days ago, and your Spuddy this morning, when I was with Mrs. Bertram.” She paused, delicately, as she liked to do when taking in the impact she had on her audience. “He would not have accepted my invitation, you know, if I hadn't happened to mention that I was, that morning, without my usual escort-- Lieutenant Lanyon.”

Ralph did not often swear at Mary, but he did now.

She burst out laughing, taking this in the spirit of fondness with which this was intended. “I warned you  _ twice  _ not to underestimate me, Lieutenant Lanyon.”

“You oughtn’t to have--”

“Have done what? Done you a good turn? Well, perhaps it is not exactly  _ good _ . I hardly know whether yours was for me.”

“You shouldn’t have invited this crowd, or found Odell or--”

“You can be so awfully high-handed at times, lieutenant. Accept that there are people in the world who might like to do things for you to see you happy. And, you know, I am accustomed to how admirals treat this business, and hide what it is they do not wish the world to see. You are not the only one acquainted with  _ rears  _ and  _ vices. _ ”

 

 

 


End file.
